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The fields, but especially Blackbanks, contained quantities of bones, the horns of sheep or goats, pieces of stags, horns, iron spear and arrow-heads, horses' molar teeth, and flint pebbles worn flat on one side by the passage of innumerable feet for many years.
One of my fields about five acres called Blackbanks from its extraordinarily black soil, over a yard deep in places, and the more remarkable because the soil of the surrounding fields is stiff yellowish clay, showed other indications of long and very ancient habitation.
Only centuries of habitation and cultivation could have changed the three feet of surface soil in Blackbanks from a stiff unworkable clay to a black friable garden mould, and it is probable that the British occupation had lasted for a very long period before the Romans took possession.
It is right to add that Blackbanks as the site of Antona was suggested to me many years ago by the late Canon Winnington Ingram, Rector of Harvington; in discussing the matter, however, we got no further than the bare suggestion derived from the appearance of long habitation and the occurrence of Roman coins and pottery in Blackbanks only, and without reference to the much larger area of Blackminster.
It is conceivable that some of these are represented in the coins found in Blackbanks, but these specimens are too badly weathered for certain identification to be possible. On March 4, 268, Gallienus was assassinated. Tetricus is of interest only because his surrender to Aurelian in 273 marks the collapse of the Gallic empire.
Canon Winnington Ingram was not familiar with the place, and I had not apprehended the importance of the track from the "Fish and Anchor" as a salt way starting from Droitwich, nor was I aware of Salter Street, its continuation after passing Blackbanks.
Among other relics found in Blackbanks and in the fields to the north, called Blackminster, between Blackbanks and the present line of the Great Western Railway, aggregating about a hundred acres, there were found large quantities of fragments of pottery of several kinds, including black, grey, and red, and among the latter the smoothly glazed Samian.
This track passes to the west of South Littleton, on through the middle of the Blackminster land, and immediately to the east of Blackbanks, joining what I believe to be the Ryknield Street at the bridge over the stream on the South Littleton road. Near the present Royal Oak Inn it formerly crossed the present Evesham-Bretforton road, and became what is still called Salter Street.
In 383 Magnus Maximus was proclaimed emperor in Britain, and Gratian was murdered on August 25. The coins were not a hoard; they were found all over the Roman area I have described, but especially in Blackbanks, and they became visible generally when the surface was fallow and had broken down into fine mould from the action of the weather.
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